


My YouTube Jorney

by KathyPrior42



Category: Dragon Ball, No Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 10:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19886116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathyPrior42/pseuds/KathyPrior42





	My YouTube Jorney

Kathy Prior 42 never imagined she would enjoy Dragon Ball Z so much. For much of her life, she had been interested in a select few movies and TV shows. At first glance, a show about Japanese super powered men yelling and fighting each other didn’t have much appeal to her. After all, it was a show geared toward boys and men and had mostly appeared in the 90’s, when she was very little. 

However, all of that changed when she discovered several musicians on YouTube during her years at college.

Back in 2014, Kathy had discovered a dark electronic versatile musician known as The Enigma TNG. She first discovered him by watching one of his six hour music playlist videos. The variety of sounds, plus the titles of each track were unlike anything she had seen or heard before. Eyeing a track called “Alien March,” she looked it up and found it on his channel, which back then, had only 12,000 subscribers. Almost all of the videos had green tinted pictures of futuristic and gothic images. The more tracks she listened to, the more she became hooked. Her eyes popped out of her head when she realized that all of those 100 + tracks were, indeed, created by the same man. 

Not only that, but Enigma also had separate channels known as “Phantom Tempus,” “StarCat,” “Dreamstation,” and his famous Dragon Ball themed channel, “Saiyan Enigma.” Although she thought the music was fantastic, her interest in Dragon Ball didn’t quite come into fruition…mostly because she was always hesitant to try new things. With no prior knowledge of Dragon Ball Z, Kathy was content enough to just enjoy the music. 

One tragic day at college in the winter of 2017, Che’Z Collins had blocked her from Facebook and from most of his websites out of the blue. For over four years, Kathy had prided herself on being a knowledgeable, close fan of The Enigma TNG. Sure, she may have gone slightly overboard with her (non-sexual) fanfictions and drawings, but it was only out of support for the musician. All those years of daydreaming and dedication had been for naught in the long run. By the time 2019 rolled around, she felt like an “elder” outsider to the TNG community, despite being part of recently created fan groups on Facebook. Even buying his albums that he released every several months wasn’t the same as it was before. 

Several years later, Kathy Prior discovered another channel full of Dragon Ball Z and Super fan music. The user was not as popular as Enigma was, but talented nonetheless. His name was Stephen Paul Collins, better known online as HalusaTwin. His OC avatar of a red haired Tuffle wearing a yellow jacket was designed to be appealing to Dragon Ball fans who encountered his channel. Kathy didn’t know exactly when her interest in Dragon Ball Z spiked…but once it was there, there was no turning back.

Before long, Kathy had bought HalusaTwin’s Dragon Dimension albums on his Bandcamp page along with all the Enigma TNG albums she had acquired previously. The art was eye-catching, the music had a joyful variety to it…and most interesting was the fact that this man would constantly be making tracks. In fact, he had made more Dragon Ball tracks than any other YouTuber, even Saiyan Enigma. It was like he was constantly filled with inspiration and a drive to create music for a show he was so passionate about. Eventually, Kathy made friends with him and other users on Twitter: MajinBlue, Retro Ranter, Orack, and Sumera, among many others. The kindness and artistic works of these individuals inspired Kathy to write fanfictions for Dragon Ball Z. She even attempted to make a story using all of their original characters.

More than the many talents that her online friends possessed, it was their friendliness and encouragement of each other that kept Kathy involved in the group. While each of them praised her storytelling, she would complement their music and artwork in return. Even though she had never met any of them in person, she felt a strong connection with the group. It reminded her of how close she felt with her real life group of Disney loving friends she had made in college. Similar to her offline group, the Dragon Ball fandom had a strong sense of community, passion for self-expression, and an ever-present humorous tone to it (even if it was more often than not on the perverted side). Over the months and years, Kathy made more online friends and grew closer to the ones she knew.

But closeness is not easily defined when it comes to being online. The barrier between online and offline had gotten blurrier for her, just like it did for others from her generation. Some days, she was just a fan…other days she was a supportive friend. Still there were other times during streaming sessions on YouTube where she felt like she had known these people for much of her life. She was lucky to have had a great experience with her wonderful friends from near and far.


End file.
